This invention pertains to farm implements and more particularly to a harvester for corn such as is used for animal feed. It is especially designed for harvesting corn which is not planted in rows or is planted in rows spaced differently from the usual.
Until recently corn (sometimes called "maize") has been planted exclusively as a row-crop. As the corn plant has been developed with hybrid seed and other improvements, the use of more closely spaced rows and higher population of plants per unit of area has become common.
At the same time the disadvantage of row-crops has also become more apparent. In earlier days of corn planting the corn was checked in rows spaced at 40-inch intervals. This allowed a cultivator to be run through the rows on perpendicular paths allowing for good mechanical removal of weeds. Later, with the increasing success and efficiency of herbicides, rows could be spaced closer and it was no longer necessary to cultivate with a mechanical cultivator in two directions. Weeds were simply killed chemically. However, the rows still provided water courses or wind paths leading to erosion of topsoil. This was less true of rows that followed or approached following the contours of the land. That expedient at least slowed erosion.
Most recently it has been proposed that corn be planted by broadcast methods with random intervals between plants and no discernable rows. However all harvesting equipment has been adapted to row planting. All corn combines now require that the rows be divided by an extending snout on the corn head of the combine and the corn plant then carried between the stripping fingers of the corn stripping device which removes the ears from the plant. The ears are then carried into husking rolls which remove the husks and finally the grain is removed from the cob.
The use of the row separating snouts makes impractical the use of present machines to harvest random-planted corn or corn planted in very narrow rows. ordinary combines usable for harvesting other row-planted grains are also impractical because of the need for separating the corn ear from the tough stalks. That requirement is not present in most other grain crops which may be planted randomly or in very narrow row spacing.
It should be recognized throughout the description that although the principal benefits may come from use of the invention in a machine with corn planted at random, the machine is also useful if the customary row spacing should change. For example, when farmers changed from 30 inch spacing of rows to a 20 inch spacing, new corn heads for the new spacing were required on practically all of the corn harvesters. If customary spacing were again to be changed, the machines using the present invention would continue to be useful.
By the present invention, applicant has provided a machine capable of and adapted to the removal of the ears of corn from randomly-planted stalks of corn, and delivering that ear to husking and shelling machinery in the combine so that corn may be fully harvested in the same general manner as is row-planted corn.